then I could not leave Madame—and so it went on for two years more, till, when the family were at Pisa, Félix insisted that I should come to a decision. Then M. Hare sent for Félix, who had been acting as a courier for some time, and begged him to come to Florence to go with us as a courier to Baden. Félix arrived on the Jeudi Saint. M. Hare came in soon after (it was in my little room) and talked to him as if they were old friends. He brought a bottle of champagne, and poured out glasses for us all, and faisait clinquer les verres. On the Monday we all left for Milan, and there I was married to Félix, and, after the season at Baden, Félix and I were to return to Paris, but when the time came M. Hare would not let us."
"Wherever," said Victoire, "M. Hare était en passage—soit à Florence, soit à Rome, n'importe où, il faudrait toujours des diners, et des fêtes, pour recevoir M. Hare, surtout dans les ambassades, pas seulement dans l'ambassade d'Angleterre, mais dans celles de France, d'Allemagne, etc. Et quand M. Hare ne voyageait plus, et qu'il était établi dans quelque ville, il donnait à son tour des diners à lui."
"Il s'occupait toujours à lire—pas des romans, mais des anciens livres, dans lesquelles il fouillait toujours. Quand nous voyageons, c'était toujours pour visiter les bibliothèques, ça c'était la première chose, et il emporta énormément des livres dans la voiture avec lui. … Quand il y'avait une personne qui lui avait été recommandée, il fallait toujours lui faire voir tout ce qu'il avait, soit à Rome, soit à Bologne—et comme il savait un peu de tout, son avis était demandé pour la valeur des tableaux, et n'importe de quoi."
On first going abroad, my father had taken his wife to make acquaintance with his old friends Lady Blessington and Count d'Orsay, with whom they afterwards had frequent meetings. Lady Blessington thus describes to Landor her first impressions of Mrs. Hare:—
"Paris, Feb. 1829.—Among the partial gleams of sunshine which have illumined our winter, a fortnight's sojourn which Francis Hare and his excellent wife made here, is remembered with most pleasure. She is indeed a treasure—well-informed, clever, sensible, well-mannered, kind, lady-like, and, above all, truly feminine; the having chosen such a woman reflects credit and distinction on our friend, and the community with her has had a visible effect on him, as, without losing any of his gaiety, it has become softened down to a more mellow tone, and he appears not only a more happy man, but more deserving of happiness than before."
My second brother, William Robert, was born September 20, 1831, at the Bagni di Lucca, where the family was spending the summer. Mrs. Louisa Shipley meanwhile never ceased to urge their return to England.
"Jan. 25, 1831.—I am glad to hear so good an account of my two little great-nephews, but I should be still more glad to see them. I do hope the next may be a girl. If Francis liked England for the sake of being with old friends, he might live here very comfortably, but if he will live as those who can afford to make a show, for one year of parade in England he must be a banished man for many years. I wish he would be as 'domestic' at home as he is abroad!"
In the summer of 1832 all the family went to Baden-Baden, to meet Lady Paul and her daughter Eleanor, Sir John, the FitzGeralds, and the Bankheads. All the branches of Mrs. Hare's family lived in different houses, but they met daily for dinner, and were very merry. Before the autumn, my father returned to Italy, to the Villa Cittadella near Lucca, which was taken for two months for Mrs. Hare's confinement, and there, on the 9th of October, my sister was born. She received the names of "Anne Frances Maria Louisa." "Do you mean your πολνὡνμος daughter to rival Venus in all her other qualities as well as in the multitude of her names? or has your motive been rather to recommend her to a greater number of patron saints?" wrote my uncle Julius on hearing of her birth. Just before this, Mrs. Shelley (widow of the poet and one of her most intimate friends) had written to Mrs. Hare:—
"Your accounts of your child (Francis) give me very great pleasure. Dear little fellow, what an amusement and delight he must be to you. You do indeed understand a Paradisaical life. Well do I remember the dear Lucca baths, where we spent morning and evening in riding about the country—the most prolific place in the world for all manner of reptiles. Take care of yourself, dearest friend. … Choose Naples for your winter residence. Naples, with its climate, its scenery, its opera, its galleries, its natural and ancient wonders, surpasses every other place in the world. Go thither, and live on the Chiaja. Happy one, how I envy you. Percy is in brilliant health and promises better and better.
"Have you plenty of storms at dear beautiful Lucca? Almost every day when I was there, vast white clouds peeped out from above the hills—rising higher and higher till they overshadowed us, and spent themselves in rain and tempest: the thunder, re-echoed again and again by the hills, is indescribably terrific. … Love me, and return to us—Ah! return to us! for it is all very stupid and unamiable without you. For are not you—
'That cordial drop Heaven in our cup had thrown,
To make the nauseous draught of life go down.'"
After a pleasant winter at Naples, my father and his family went to pass the summer of 1833 at Castellamare. "C'était à Castellamare" (says a note by Madame Victoire) "que Madame Hare apprit la mort de Lady Paul. Elle était sur le balcon, quand elle la lut dans le journal. J'étais dans une partie de la maison très éloignée, mais j'ai entendu un cri si fort, si aigu, que je suis arrivée de suite, et je trouvais Madame Hare toute étendue sur le parquet. J'appellais—'Au secours, au secours,' et Félix, qui était très fort, prenait Madame Hare dans ses bras, et l'apportait à mettre sur son lit, et nous l'avons donné tant des choses, mais elle n'est pas revenue, et elle restait pendant deux heures en cet état. Quand M. Hare est entré, il pensait que c'était à cause de sa grossesse. Il s'est agenouillé tout en pleurs à coté de son lit. Il demandait si je lui avais donné des lettres. 'Mais, non, monsieur; je ne l'ai pas donné qu'un journal.' On cherchait longtemps ce journal, parcequ'elle l'avait laissé tomber du balcon, mais quand il était trouvé, monsieur s'est aperçu tout de suite de ce qu'elle avait." The death of Lady Paul was very sudden; her sister Lady Ravensworth first heard of it when calling to inquire at the door in the Strand in her carriage. After expressing her sympathy in the loss of such a mother, Mrs. Louisa Shipley at this time wrote to Mrs. Hare:—
"I will now venture to call your attention to the blessings you possess in your husband and children, and more particularly to the occupation of your thoughts in the education of the latter. They are now at an age when it depends on a mother to lay the foundation of principles which they will carry with them through life. The responsibility is great, and if you feel it such, there cannot be a better means of withdrawing your mind from unavailing sorrow, than the hope of seeing them beloved and respected, and feeling that your own watchfulness of their early years, has, by the blessing of God, caused them to be so. Truth is the cornerstone of all virtues: never let a child think it can deceive you; they are cunning little creatures, and reason before they can speak; secure this, and the chief part of your work is done, and so ends my sermon."
It was in the summer of 1833, following upon her mother's death, that a plan was first arranged by which my aunt Eleanor Paul became an inmate of my father's household—the kind and excellent aunt whose devotion in all times of trouble was afterwards such a blessing to her sister and her children. Neither at first or ever afterwards was the residence of Eleanor Paul any expense in her sister's household: quite the contrary, as she had a handsome allowance from her father, and afterwards inherited a considerable fortune from an aunt.
In the autumn of 1833 my father rented the beautiful Villa Strozzi at Rome, then standing in large gardens of its own facing the grounds of the noble old Villa Negroni, which occupied the slope of the Viminal Hill looking towards the Esquiline. Here on the 13th of March 1834 I was born—the youngest child of the family, and a most unwelcome addition to the population of this troublesome world, as both my father and Mrs. Hare were greatly annoyed at the birth of another child, and beyond measure disgusted that it was another son.
II
CHILDHOOD
1834–1843